


Hold On, Hold On

by UbiquitousMixie



Category: The Closer
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 19:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UbiquitousMixie/pseuds/UbiquitousMixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the devil I love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold On, Hold On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [surena_13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surena_13/gifts).



> Set after 3x13, Til Death Do Us Part: II. I was interested in the idea of writing an early Brenda/Sharon interaction while also exploring Brenda’s response to Fritz’s alcoholism. This turned out MUCH more angsty than I anticipated. Seriously – angst lies ahead. The song referenced in the fic is “Hold On, Hold On” by Neko Case. Please let me know what you think.

If anyone were to ask her why this had happened, Brenda would argue that there was a lot of blame to share. 

She blamed the tacky restaurant with its half-priced mojitos, beckoning to her like a siren call. Her mood had been abysmal, and the large sign boasting that it was Monday Mojito Madness seemed a safe enough haven from her woes. She hated mojitos, hated the sickening infusion of too much mint, but the empty glasses had lined up until there was nothing left of them but little neon umbrellas that she had eventually stuck in her hair. 

_…it’s the devil I love…_

She blamed Fritz for keeping a secret that had tainted her view of him. She was a damn hypocrite for finding solace at the bottom of a cocktail or four after learning about her fiancé’s alcoholism…but she never claimed to be perfect. Fritz knew everything about her, every flaw and every quirk and every vulnerability. It didn’t matter that she was a world-class liar, because he saw through all the bullshit and knew the truth of her. It was the most honest, open relationship she’d ever been in—or so she had thought. But Fritz…he had kept this part of himself closed off so tightly that it never occurred to her to question him. He acted like a saint, and she had bought it. She thought she knew him, and now she wondered what else he had kept hidden from her. Her naiveté disgusted her. She felt like a fool. 

_…compared to some I’ve been around, but I really tried so hard…_

She blamed the song, with its haunting lyrics speaking to her over the competing volume of the football game playing in the background. She’d snapped her fingers at the bartender to turn up the radio, nodding her head in time with the music while she tried to commit the lyrics to memory. It spoke to her in a way that music normally didn’t, and the words floated through her mind like a news-ticker that flashed headlines specific to her own life. 

_The most tender place in my heart is for strangers…I know it’s unkind but my own blood is much too dangerous…_

She blamed that woman, who introduced herself only as “Sharon” and who had been so undeniably compelling that Brenda had been unable to resist. She’d had more than a few mojitos under her belt by the time the woman had taken a seat beside her, but Brenda had been unable to shake the feeling that she recognized her. How could she forget that gorgeous, silken brown hair, those hypnotic green eyes hidden behind her glasses? They talked about nothing, and yet Brenda had felt an instant connection that she couldn’t attribute to the liquor.

_…in the end I was the mean girl, or somebody’s in-between girl…_

She blamed the cigarettes, which Sharon had offered and Brenda had accepted, even though she never smoked. She had always hated the acrid, stale stench of the smoke and the aftertaste and the dizziness she felt after sucking in each lungful of nicotine. She agreed to follow Sharon outside for a cigarette because it felt independent of Fritz – he didn’t smoke and didn’t approve – and Brenda was resolved to defiantly do what _she_ wanted, whether he liked it or not. She wanted to prove, in a way, that he didn’t know everything about her. There was a fascination she couldn’t deny, wanting to see someone so beautiful doing something that Brenda considered so ugly. It hadn’t repulsed her, after all. It had made her dizzy. It turned her on. 

_…it’s the devil I love…_

She blamed herself. 

_…hold on, hold on, hold on…_

In the end, it was no one else’s fault but her own. It had been her choice to avoid Fritz while he was at an AA meeting (all those nights he said he was working late, had he been at meetings? What other secrets had he kept?), her choice to get drunk rather than rationally process her reaction (she’d always been great at avoidance), her choice to follow Sharon to her car (legs for days…). She had initiated the kiss, threaded her fingers in that luscious hair and breathed her in like oxygen. 

It was all Brenda. 

_…it’s the devil I love, and it’s as funny as real love…_

She’d hate herself in the morning, when she woke up in a fog, hungover and angry and guilty. She’d blame Fritz for it all, because it would be easier than looking at herself in the mirror and acknowledging that she was a selfish, cheating hypocrite. It would be easier than admitting to herself that maybe her relationship with Fritz wasn’t so picture-perfect, and that fucking a woman in the backseat of a car felt more natural than making love with a man. 

Fritz had lied to her. Maybe Sharon had lied too. Neither of them were bigger liars than Brenda, and she’d hold on to her lies until they formed a truth she could live with. 

\---


End file.
